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Murray out to inflict pain on Del Potro after recent ‘battles’

After beating Tomas Berdych in round two, he bounced back well from losing the third set to Isner to win 7-6 (7/1) 6-3 6-7 (5/7) 7-6 (7/3) in a match carried over from Saturday evening.Murray will next meet the victor of No. 21 John Isner vs. Karen Khachanov, who were rained out after the Russian won the first set.The Swiss saved four set points as Fognini twice served for the opening set, with the volatile 28th seed then capitulating and Wawrinka powering to a 7-6 (7/2), 6-0, 6-2 victory.Del Potro, whose career has been blighted by a recurring wrist injury, needed a good start against the world number one, but when he lost a tight first set tie-break, the stage was set.Murray and Del Potro met in two classic encounters past year.Murray eventually took it 10-8 after one hour and 25 minutes, with Del Potro then spending much of the changeover slumped over the net.He out-scored the powerful Argentine with 41 winners to 35, all the while mixing up his game with deft drop shots and sharp volleys.Although Murray was keen to talk up his performance in his second-round win over Martin Klizan, he surely knew he would have to significantly raise his level to stand a chance against Del Potro.Halep romped through the first set of the third round match in 30 minutes, with an ankle injury she sustained in mid-May giving her no more than a single twinge.The world number one, who beat Del Potro in the Rio Olympic final, needed almost three hours to beat the 29th seed, and Murray made an effort to contain his trademark swearing and futile shouting, after admitting he had let his emotions get the better of him in the previous round.”The conditions were very slow and heavy so coming from behind in those conditions can be difficult because it feels you have to work very hard for every point”, he added.”But he also will remember those matches and they weren’t easy for him either, they were tough for him and I will try to make it the same for him again on Saturday”.”I played some good matches at the beginning of the year, but definitely in the clay-court season, the second or third sets were the best I have played, for sure”, he said. Both those two sets could have gone either way. “I was playing great, great points during the whole first set”.By contrast, it was only Edmund’s second appearance in the last 32 of a major.The world number one said: “The Davis Cup one was physically tough for me because it came off the back of a long summer”.”I couldn’t believe that I lost that set, because I had many opportunities to win”, he said.”But, you know, quality by him”. It’s the 14th meeting for the pair but just one previous match has come on clay, with Gael Monfils triumphing in straight sets in Barcelona six years ago.